The present invention relates to an audio-visual communication device comprising an audio reception path and a video reception path, said paths being suitable for receiving a video signal and an audio signal, respectively, originating from a second audio-visual communication device. The invention also relates to a communication method adapted to said device.
The invention has particular application in the field of mobile telephony.
The first edition of the journal xe2x80x9cWireless Communications and Mobile Computingxe2x80x9d dated January-March 2001 describes a communication device, in this case a portable telephone currently referred to as a mobile, which comprises a screen, a camera and a radio reception module allowing communication with a second communication device by means of video-conferencing. Video-conferencing via a mobile telephone is a service designated as 3rd generation, described particularly in the standard IMT-2000 (xe2x80x9cInternational Mobile Telecommunicationsxe2x80x9d) published by the ITU (xe2x80x9cInternational Telecommunication Unionxe2x80x9d), and which is incorporated in said mobile.
During a conversation by video-conference between a user and another person, the user of a mobile will have difficulty hearing the voice of the other person if the latter is situated in a high level of ambient noise, said voice corresponding to a signal received by the audio reception path of said user""s mobile. Consequently, this gives rise to poor understanding of the other person by the user. In order to resolve this problem, a solution would be to increase the volume of audio reception. However, by increasing the volume in this way, the noise is also amplified. In addition, this solution may be irksome if the user is not alone and wishes to keep the conversation confidential.
Accordingly, a technical problem to be resolved by the object of the present invention is to propose an audio-visual communication device comprising an audio reception path and a video reception path, said reception paths being suitable for receiving a video signal and an audio signal, respectively, originating from a second audio-visual communication device, and an associated method, which would in particular allow the quality of understanding between two users of audio-visual communication devices during a video-conference to be improved, without utilizing excessive resources in terms of data transmission, and without consuming excessive energy.
One solution to the technical problem posed is characterized, according to a first object of the present invention, in that the audio-visual communication device comprises:
means of return control suitable for adapting an image frequency of said video signal as a function of a noise signal, said audio signal comprising said noise signal.
According to a second object of the present invention, this solution is characterized in that the audio-visual communication method comprises a step:
for adapting an image frequency of said video signal as a function of a noise signal, said audio signal comprising said noise signal.
Thus, as will be seen in detail below, thanks to the means of control, the received video signal is improved when the received audio signal deteriorates. The basis for this is the principle by which a user of said audio-visual communication device better interprets what the other person says when he can see his face better and particularly when he can see his lips moving better. The interpretation of the received audio signal includes an error rate which is a function of the received video signal. The more fluid a sequence of frames corresponding to the video signal is, the easier the interpretation is.
These and other aspects of the invention are apparent from and will be elucidated, by way of non-limiting example, with reference to the embodiment(s) described hereinafter.